1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical fiber link, and more particularly to, a multi-diameter optical fiber link for all optical system backplane solutions that eliminate the electrical signal connection between line card modules of a system. The present invention is also as simple as the traditional electrical connector.
2. Background of the Invention
In a complicated system, a plurality of subsystems, function blocks, modules, and/or line card modules may be used, and signals are transmitted therebetween via electrical wiring. FIG. 1 is a schematic drawing of a conventional electrical wiring backplane solution. As shown in FIG. 1, the line card modules 10 and 12 communicate to each other through the Backplane 11, and the communication signals are carried by the electrical wires 101, 112 and 212. The electrical wires extends from the line card module 10 to the module 12 via the line card connector 102, the backplane connector 111, the backplane wiring 112, the backplane connector 113, the line card connector 122, and the electrical wire 121. The electrical signals are driven and received by the integrated circuits (IC) 103 and 123. As the communication data rate increases, it requires more wires and high speed signals to carry heavy data load. It also makes the wiring design more difficult for the backplane 11 and the line card module 10.
In general, one pair of differential electrical wires can carry a data rate up to 3 Giga bits per-second (Gbps). If the system requires communication rates above 100 Gbps, designing the layout of the electrical wires will become very difficult for the backplane and the line card module. It would require a printed circuit board with tens of layers of as the backplane to carry that kind of data rate. In addition, the increased data rate also causes the electromagnetic interference (EMI) problem for the whole system.